Showing results for "justified"

• past tense form of justify.
• past participle of justify.

justified

American  

[juhs-tuh-fahyd] / ˈdʒʌs təˌfaɪd /

adjective

1. having been shown to be just or right.

   If a parent sides with one child over another, one will feel righteous and justified, and the other will feel misunderstood and resentful.

2. warranted or well-grounded.

   The commission’s stance is that bans on GMO crops must be scientifically justified and crop-specific.

   I accept that there may be a penalty for justified civil disobedience, but I must weigh that penalty against the good that can be accomplished.

3. Printing. aligned with one or, especially, both margins.

   Justified text looks a little neater, but there's nothing particularly wrong with having a ragged right edge.

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noun

1. Theology. Usually the justified a person or persons believed to be worthy, redeemed, or absolved.

   Good works are logically and morally necessary, for they are nothing more or less than the evidence that one is indeed among the justified.

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of justify.

Other Word Forms

• half-justified
  adjective
• unjustified
  adjective
• well-justified
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of justified

justify ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Explanation

In typesetting, the term justified refers to how words line up with the margins of a page or column. Whether you choose to make the text left, right, or fully justified depends on the purpose of the text. If you're typing a letter, you may want the date and your address to be right justified. The last character on each line would touch the right margin. The salutation (the part that says, "Dear Sir or Madam") would be left justified, with the D touching the left margin. The body of the letter could be left justified, with the right margin uneven, or fully justified, with both the right and left aligned.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

justified

Third, and most fundamentally, laws against betting on voting may be justified by the same interests as laws barring the buying and selling of votes overall.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026

Kyiv calls its strikes "long-range sanctions", saying the attacks are justified retribution for Russia's more than four-year offensive and nightly attacks on its cities.

From Barron's ● Jul. 24, 2026

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the long-classified files have historically fuelled "justified speculation," saying that the American people have a right to see the information for themselves.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

Stocks have swung wildly lately with investors assessing, and then reassessing, whether the rally in technology companies underpinning the AI revolution was justified.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

My parents said he was justified in cutting me off.

From "Educated" by Tara Westover

Related Words

• constitutional
• contractual
• fair
• juridical
• lawful
• legitimate
• proper
• statutory
• valid